The Exact Moment
by BattyBigSister
Summary: I remember the exact moment I realised I was in love with her. It had taken me far too long to just notice what was right there in front of me.


I remember the exact moment I realised I was in love with her. It had taken me far too long to just notice what was right there in front of me. She was standing by one of the fish ponds in the garden, the thick summer foliage of some kind of aspen over her head and the golden sunlight spilling down through it onto the lush green of the grass. Her back was turned to me, but I could see her hands clutched against the elaborate fabric of her kimono. She turned, looking up towards where we stood in front of the temple and I could see her reddened eyes and the cheeks swollen beneath her whisker-like birthmarks, the tracks of private tears... Then I felt the fabric of a red ribbon tied around my hand and I finally heard the words that were busy making someone else my wife.

It seemed like the world fell away, like I was falling through the very earth itself. Bile rose in my throat and my stomach churned at an ungodly rate; I felt like I was going to be sick or faint or something. To this day I don't know how nobody else seemed to have noticed or how something that couldn't have lasted more than a second managed to take an eternity. I felt like I had just been slugged in the gut, like someone was ripping out my intestines through my mouth and yet the priests kept right on chanting and waving, the guests glowed with respectful jubilation and beside me my bride, someone who I valued as a friend even if I did not love her, just kept right on smiling in utter oblivion.

It was worse even than when my brother died. Until that moment I hadn't believed such a thing to be possible, but it was. As I stood there, I knew for the first time with absolute surety and clarity what it had all meant. The way were inseparable as children. The way we fought as adolescents. The way she had defied convention and the rules set for her gender, wearing armour and wielding weapons, riding into combat like a man, all for the sake of bringing me back after I ran away to seek revenge on my brother for the shame I thought he brought on our family name. The way she fought by my side and slowly brought me back to reason when I found out that my brother had in fact spent his life in dishonour to save my family from the shame it ought to have earned... and to protect me. She had patiently bore my vicious attacks and my aimless rage, pledged her life to die beside me, with me, if I needed her too and taught me to live and feel like a human being again. She made me a man again, gave me back honour and reason. Then she had brought me home, home to our mutual best friend, my fiancée... to another woman... and in that and that alone she had been wrong.

I knew I loved her and glancing at the tears on her face I realised she might just love me back. She, the ninja hero's daughter – and a hero in her own right if the world was a fairer place, in love with the once disgraced samurai's son. Even if the world had thought her my equal, I would never deserve her. She had more honour, more courage, more tenacious spirit than I ever would and had she been born a boy I would probably have been forced to admit she was more than my equal long before that moment.

Yet I would never have her, not now. I would never hold her in my arms and tell her of my feelings. She would never betray her best friend by becoming my mistress and now thanks to this very ceremony she could never be my wife. I felt like screaming and yet I couldn't. I couldn't destroy this wedding and betray her by hurting a woman she valued. I could only watch as she slowly turned away again, moving into the shadow of the tree and out of sight... and also out of my life forever. I knew I would never see her again. Not even if I somehow became unmarried again and I searched the whole world for her. She was better at any game of hide-and-seek than I was and she would never betray my new wife, she would never betray me, by needlessly complicating our lives – even if I desperately wanted her too.

She simply walked away, demurely exiting my life and there was nothing I could do to stop her.


End file.
